Elvis Presley - That's All Right (Sun)
The Hold Steady - Hurricane J (Rough Trade)
Big Star - Ballad Of El Goodo (Ryko)
The Lost Brothers - Who Could Love you More (Tri Tone)
(Lowly Knights interview)
David Byrne - Fatboy Slim - Here Lies Love (Nonesuch)
Eddie Hinton - Here I Am (Zane)
Villagers - Becoming a Jackal (Domino)
The Triffids - Bury Me Deep In Love (Domino)
Unthanks - The Testimony Of Patience Kershaw (EMI)
David Holmes - The Girlfriend Experience (Universal)
Second Hour
Alex Chilton - Free Again (Rhino)
Paul Weller - No Tears To Cry (Island)
The Kissaway Trail - SDP (Bella Union)
Smokey Angle Shades - Ha Ha Tree (Tape)
Ringo Starr - Can't Do It Wrong (Universal)
Bonny Prince Billy - Troublesome Tree (Domino)
Gil Scott Heron - I'll Take Care Of You (XL)
Karen Elson - The Ghost Who Walks (XL)
Rufus Wainwright - Who Are You New York (Polydor)
A few weeks ago, I commented on a Facebook page that celebrated Belfast's underground culture and the legendary nights at the Delta and Plaza ballrooms. The page generated a reunion and so Saturday night was a slightly anxious challenge: could the old folk manage to deliver the attitude, the style and the energy?
The answer was essentially, yes. Around 250 people giving it socks to 'White Lines' by Melle Mel, a lyric about cocaine madness and the infernal bust of John Delorean - graced by an unstoppable rhythm. From the DJ decks, Lyndon Stephens was grinning. "Best bassline in the world!" he rightly claimed.
Himself and Alan Ferris were remembering the alternative tunes of the time, a steer from punk to acid house, by way of Shannon and Donna Summer, causing a ruckus with The Smiths and then The Cult's 'Sanctuary' which prompted a stampede to the dancefloor not unlike the attack scenes from Zulu.
There were bumper cans of hairspray in the toilets, but in truth, so many of the old quiffs had moulted and the crimpers were decommissioned decades ago. But it didn't lessen the fervour when the final playlist shifted from Yazoo and Nina Simone to Iggy and 'The Passenger'. It was one of those transcendental moments when everyone in the house is connected and utterly lost in the groove. We were all supremely in it. The following morning delivered the reality check and then a lurch to the laptop to see if it had really been so fine. Apparently, it had been.
You may know him as Peter Barron, Google's head of communications and public affairs for the UK, Ireland and Benelux regions. He's been busy of late commenting on his company's strained relationship with China. Before this, he was Editor of Newsnight and sometime handler of Jeremy Paxman.
But I remember the fella in a different era. Back in late Seventies Belfast, Peter was a sardonic young punk at RBAI who played in a band called Pig Awful. Clever that, getting the slight in before your critics. I don't recall much other than a stumbling version of the Bay City Roller's tune, 'There Goes My Baby'. We had the bootleg tape for a while and we'd laugh like donkeys at the backing vocals, supplied by Markie the guitarist.
Peter's talents as a media contender became apparent when he got a job on the Algarve News in the late eighties, and soon he was making progress at the BBC and Channel 4. But he's still partial to the occasional guitar lick, jamming good with Channel 4's Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Endemol boss Tim Hincks. A youtube search on spizz13 also reveals a series of Barron guitar solos, spanking that plank in the manner of Eric Clapton and Link Wray.
And yes, I did a Google search of Peter Barron and Pig Awful. No results shown. But I wouldn't suppose the Chinese are responsible for this...
This may have been the last 'proper' Big Star concert ever. A tribute to the peerless Memphis act, billed to play a Saturday headliner in Austin, but then challenged by the death of Alex Chilton on March 17. No-one would have questioned a cancellation, but instead, a series of his old friends have rallied to play those tunes at Antone's and to carry the memory.
You feel for drummer Jody Stephens, who is now minus Chilton and Chris Bell, who died in 1978. There's consolation in the brief return of original bassist Andy Hummel, but also in the arrival of Mike Mills from REM, who sings 'Jesus Christ' with trembling aplomb. Evan Dando is also up there, plus Chuck Prophet, Joe Doe and Chris Stamey, who remembers Chris Bell on 'I Am The Cosmos'.
There's a touching statement from Alex's widow and a strong appreciation of just how unique the Big Star sound was. Tuneful but wracked, those songs are deep into the fabric of rock and roll, and when The Watson Twins step up to chorus on 'September Gurls', the hurt is absolute
One of the routinely mad moments during the SWSW festival. A band are busking on Sixth Street. The drummer is wearing a toy chicken on his head. The accordion player is rocking the Elvis mask. The crowd likes it. At the end, they hand out free CDs to their audience and this girl seems extraordinarily happy to have gotten one.
Here's a fun picture. It was taken from Sixth Street, Austin, peering into BD Riley's bar, where And So I Watch You From Afar are preparing for a marvellously loud show at an early hour. Within moments, Tony was leaping off the balustrade and the audience were pinned to their places. This is a few seconds before detonation.
Yesterday, they debated the future of music journalism at SXSW. The conclusion wasn't especially cheery. The dead tree media of old is in a poor way, with circulation figures dropping, magazines folding and bands cutting out the press completely, talking to the fans direct. Blogging is also taking away that former prestige and pay rates are plummeting. I know, I'm breaking your heart...
And so various panellists working for the likes of Village Voice and Rolling Stone tried to figure the future. As with the music industry, there's a feeling that this volatile time may eventually deliver something new. So the advertiser-supported model may die, but maybe paywalls will provide. Another idea is pledge-to-pay in which a writer identifies a good story and his or her supporters raise the capital. Odd but possible.
Christopher T Weingarten reviewed 1000 albums by Twitter last year. He then commissioned some artwork, got the reviews typed up on an old-fangled typewriter and sold this rum idea as a limited edition art project. Now that's creative...
I'm at La Zona Rosa on 4th Street, watching a legend from Austin play before his home crowd. It's Roky Erikson and he's singing I Walked With Zombie, with feeling. This is the guy who released some pioneering psych journeys with the 13th Floor Elevators, sketching out the potential for the San Francisco bands and for many other classicists like Primal Scream who covered Slip Inside This House on their Screamadelica set. 
Roky was famously hospitalized in 1969, put away in a joint for the criminally insane. Later he would claim that his body had been invaded by Martians and in truth, many thought that he was permanently lost in space.
Happily though, the Roky rehabilitation has been steady since 2005 and in his latest guise, he's accompanied by Okkervill River, a band that are clearly sympathetic of his art and mindful of his situation. There is much love in the place as Rocky steps out in a tangerine shirt and plays hesitantly. But the night builds and the happiness is apparent. We miss Alex Chilton, but are glad that Roky is still essentially with us.
My second day at the SXSW event in Austin, Texas and Feargal Sharkey is in conversation with David Fricke from Rolling Stone magazine. The central part of this exchange is to let Feargal explain his position within the UK Music organisation and to plot the music industry comeback from across the pond. But Fricke, who saw The Undertones open for The Clash in NYC, 1979, its also an opportunity to roll some footage of the band lashing out Jump Boys, back in the day.
And so, before the assembled media, Fricke and Sharkey are talking about John Peel and the value of public service broadcasting, pus the importance of a few visionaries. The chat turns to independent records, and Fricke is curious about the process that birthed Teenage Kicks. He talks with enthusiasm about the DIY style of this essential EP, and the ingenious, wraparound sleeve. He knows something about Good Vibrations records and its connection to a music shop of the same name. The American supposed that this took place in Derry but Feargal is quick to point out that Terri Hooley ran his enterprise from Belfast. Its a sweet little moment.
Feargal is talking about Blind Willie Johnson, The Gorillaz and Gil Scott Heron. But he's saying little about the upcoming UK Music document, Liberating Creativity, which claims to represent the entire industry and is an agreed, seven point plan for the next 10 years. I guess well have to wait until March 29.
Sharkey does reveal some contempt for the media futurists who are filling the vacuum with their windy hypotheses. And when he is asked about just how himself and his business partner Andy Heath managed to corral a wayward industry into this single viewpoint, he says that they actually studied the Labour Partys move to have Clause 4 removed from the party constitution. Which is a long way from Teenage Kicks, but the drift isn't entirely far-fetched.
So here we are in Austin, Texas, squeezing out the sunscreen, hearing the royal cacophony of a hundred bands and watching a still-curious music industry in the throes of sorting out a programme of fun. The event is called SXSW (South By South West) and it's an amazing work of love and logistics.
Dozens of venues have been liberated and street musicians are filling up the space between, particularly around the royal throng of 6th Street. At the Conference Centre, folks are toting around their large delegate packs, full of literature such as 'Is Indie Dead?' and tweeting with intent.
Personally I'd say that there's still juice left in the creature. We saw some of that on St Patrick's Day when 'Belfast Rocks' - a City Council initiative - was staged at the Latitude 30 venue, which has been given a week's branding as the British Music Embassy.
Straight Laces, And So I Watched You From Afar, General Fiasco and Fighting With Wire were all sweetly received. It was a treat to watch ASIWYFA crank right into the transcendental art-noise mode from the get-go, causing some to reach for the ear plugs and others for the joy receptors.
Later, we spilled in the night parade, to see many small acts of musical delight, to hear to increasing prowess of Villagers and the skill of Smokey Angle Shades, onwards to the small hours.
John Grant used to sing with The Czars, a beautiful act from Denver with too many critical bouquets and not so many record sales. I recall a stunning gig at Auntie Annies in Belfast when John was putting every fibre of his humanity into the show. But two guys stood in front of him and talked loudly and pointlessly throughout the gig.
A few people approached the pair and asked them to move further back, but they only became louder and more stubborn. It was infuriating and you could see John's involvement in the event sapping away. Eventually, he just walked off the stage, explaining that he couldn't manage it any more. I was ashamed for Belfast that night.
Happily, the guy has sustained his art and he's made a solo bid with an album called Queen Of Denmark. His backing band are Midlake and they deliver all the 70s accoutrements into the mix. At times it sounds like Harry Nilsson, but elsewhere there's a flaming pain that recalls Nina Simone at her most regal. Its a formidable record.
Playlist 15.03.10
Bad Company Cant Get Enough Of your Love (Island)
Gizelle Smith - Hold Fast (Legere)
Wilco - Outta Mind Outta Sight (Reprise)
John Shelley And The Creatures - Fools (JSC)
Solomon Burke - Don't Tell Me What A Man Wont Do For A Woman (Rounder)
Erland And The Carnival - You Don't Have To Be Lonely (Full Time Hobby)
Sandy Shaw - Your Time Is Gonna Come (Harmless)
Villagers - Becoming a Jackal (Domino)
Duke Special - River Chanty (Reel To Reel)
John Grant - Where Dreams Go To Die (Bella Union)
Galaxie 500 - Tell Me (Domino)
Part Two
Eddie Cochran - Nervous Treakdown (T Bird)
Joe Echo - Wonderful Way (white)
Danny And The Champions - Restless Feet (Loose)
Grand Drive - A Ladder To The Stars (Loose)
Danny And The Champions - Henry The Van (Loose)
Bad Company - Shooting Star (Island)
John Grant - TC and Honeybear (Bella Union)
The Chieftains, Ry Cooder The Sands Of Mexico (Blackrock)
Skip Moses - Car Song (white)
Tracy Thorne - Oh The Divorces (Strange Feeling)
Steve Mason - Lost and Found (Double Six)
Carol Clerk was a fearless music writer from Belfast who served at Melody Maker for something like 20 years. She was tenacious on the news desk and she wrote about rock and roll with undimmed affection - The Damned, The Pogues and Hawkwind were all the subject of Carol books.
She was essentially friendly, but she wasn't at all soft. And she worked through some fierce times. I remember her at the Oporto Bar in Holborn where the Maker gang used to meet in the Eighties. It was a daunting place to visit, but Carol was a welcoming voice. Ten years later and she had moved down to the south bank and the new nexus was the Stamford Arms. Again, she was there, doing the dutiful.
In Belfast terms, she was a fan of the various punk bands and The Defects in particular. She also wrote a lovely piece for the local punk history, 'It Makes You Want To Spit'. Coming so soon after the loss of Swells and Gill Smith, it's been a terrible season for veteran music scribes.
Jonny Black is an occasional legend who plays with LaFaro and helms a fascinating side project called Skip Moses. He was once a hired guitar for Martin Corrigan and he seems to like the process best when its veering on the edge of irreversible meltdown.
With LaFaro, he uncoils the great riff and makes a peculiar lyric into some towering notion of folly, In this respect he has inherited some of the Andy Cairns dynamic. He cultivates the stories of the local eccentric, the trainee psychopath, and he imagines them at their worst. Like the kid who survived a house fire but was fused onto a synthetic settee. Or he pictures the scenes in some old dive bar and expands the vision into a horrendous vision to out-brutalise Brueghel.
Then again, his Skip Moses skin gives Jonny the chance to revisit Elizabeth Cotton and Freight Train, a meditation on death and the rumble of the Number Nine engine. He plays his Mississippi delta blues with grace and feeling and you sometimes wish that he was more outwardly ambitious and ruthless. But then again, that was never the way of LaFaro and it may not prevent Skip Moses from leading us into a land flowing with milk and Mudhoney.
Simon Dine made his reputation with the Noonday Underground, who delivered stylish beats with a modernist edge. His work with Paul Weller is just about ideal - respectful of the old fella's talent, but impudent enough to make it groove some more. And while I'm not a doting Weller fan, it's not hard to appreciate that he's still addressing his music with an urgency that would flatter any 20 year old.
I first met Simon around 1986, when he was a fanzine writer from Portsmouth, deep into his Two Tone, his mod and his politics. I wish I could say that his talent shone from the beginning, but he was just another keen chap trying to get work through the reviews section of Record Mirror. Later he teamed up with the mighty Go! Discs record label and began to show a deal of flair. Now he's supremely on it.
STUART BAILIE
BBC Radio Ulster, 92-95 FM
Online: www.bbc.co.uk/radioulster
Mondays, ten - midnight
Playlist 08.03.10
Paul Weller - No Tears To Cry (Island)
Fionn Regan - Catacombs (Heavenly)
Shane MacGowan And Friends - I Put a Spell On You (Concern)
A Plastic Rose - Kids Don't Behave Like This (didimau)
General Fiasco - Buildings (Infectious)
Amadou & Mariam - Djanfa (Because)
Stornoway - I Saw You Blink (4ad)
Sparklehorse - Rainmaker (Parlophone)
The Very Best - Kamphopo (Moshi Moshi)
Paul Weller - Wake Up The Nation (Island)
The Lowly Knights - You Can't Help Who You Love (We Collect Records)
Paul Brady - One More Today (Proper)
Maika Makovski - Friends (Outstanding)
Two Door Cinema Club - Do You Want It All? (Kitsune)
General Trees - Everything So So So (Soul Jazz)
Pavement - Cut Your Hair (Domino)
The Lowly Knights - I Don't Know How To Get Through To You (We Collect Records)
Ben Glover - Where The Lines Are (Mr Jones)
Chris Brokaw and Geoff Farina - Sitting On Top Of The World (Damnably)
Patsy Cline - A Poor Mans Roses Or A Rich Mans Gold (Righteous)
Sweet Billy Pilgrim - There Will It End (Samasishound)
Liz Frazer - Moses (Rough Trade)
Foals Spanish Sahara (Warner)
Blakroc - What You Do To Me (V2)
For the first part of their career, The Lowly Knights were beaming and happily perturbed that the world had grown to love them so well and so quickly. One moment they were ambling onto the small stages of Belfast, stomping and enthusing and looking like an act that was doing it purely for the rite of expression. Next thing, Duke Special was writing a song about them, Gary Lightbody was blogging with gusto and they were onstage at the Odyssey Arena, still looking like they were part of a parallel world where people got their dues for being proper and true.
It was fun to see a dozen people onstage, dodging the cello bow and hammering at xylophones and stuff. It was a little like the Toronto ensemble Broken Social Scene in that there were many talents passing through and that a scene was in joyous motion before our eyes. But I guess that we had already accepted that in practical terms, the Knights were going to either remain the keen amateurs or else trim a few sails.
So their new Hollow EP is evidence of that process. Their profile was willfully lessened over 2009, new songs have been fetched up and an actual career can be imagined. But still we hear all the voices and the clapping and the rapture. This may be a little less expansive, but the evidence is that the songs are bold and sweetly arranged and yes, the charm may be unharmed. I'll be playing a few of the tunes tonight.
Back in 1992 I saw an amazing act called Uncle Tupelo. The venue was the Borderline in London and the band featured a couple of flaming talents: Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar. They had steered out of Belleville, Illinois with a sound that resonated with punk rock and scrounge rockers like The Replacements and Big Star. But there was
also a lonesome aspect to their music that took us back to the roots of Americana. In fact, their recording of the Carter Family song, 'No Depression', had given a new genre the name for their magazine and their ethos.
By the time I saw them, Uncle Tupelo were starting to fracture, while the rank of major record company execs at the back reflected that a change was coming. But the music was still supreme and I mourned their passing. The band split into Son Volt and Wilco, and it was the later act, fronted by Tweedy, that inspired me most. I picked up their second album, 'Being There' at Newbury Comics in Boston in 1996 and it fried my head, causing me to write a frenzied review in the NME. I met Jeff Tweedy and his cohort Jay Bennett soon after and I found them to be perfectly affable in person and astounding on stage.
Since then they have challenged and amazed us with regular panache. Poor Jay is no longer with us, and Jeff has met with some problems along the way, but the music still rules and last year's self-titled album was another beauty. Therefore we're all in love with the idea of Wilco playing Belfast, September 10, in the Open House Festival. Supported by The Felice Brothers, no less. I'll see you there, good people...
You may never get more awesome extremes that in your teenage years. The vain-glorious drama, the upset, the fear and the valour are all beautifully expressed in David Bowie's 'All The Young Dudes'. He takes us through the definitive '70s gang formation, with the kamikaze speed freak, the narcissist, the androgen and the has-been. The song closes
in with its concrete horizons and loses it in cheap wine and T. Rex records.
It is bored and triumphant at the same time. Dame David recorded a great live version in Philadelphia, opening with an accapella lament and bringing in the saxophone and the soul. But then he had already gifted the song to Mott The Hoople, who sang it like the desperate band they were. Which is where Matthew Sweet and Susannah Hoffs take their version from. Sweeter, but still fine.
STUART BAILIE
BBC Radio Ulster, 92-95 FM
Online: www.bbc.co.uk/radioulster
Mondays, ten - midnight
Playlist 01.03.10
Matthew Sweet, Susannah Hoffs - All The Young Dudes (Shout! Factory)
The Lowly Knights - Miracle (We Collect Records)
Mumford And Sons - Awake My Soul (Island)
Captain Kennedy - Stretch That Penny (Vinny Lovelace)
Captain Kennedy - Sweetest Friend (Vinny Lovelace)
Scott Walker profile featuring :
The Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Philips)
The Walker Brothers - My Ship Is Coming In (Philips)
Scott Walker - Jackie (Fontana)
Scott Walker - The Old Man Is Back (Fontana)
The Walker Brothers - Nite Flites (GTO)
Scott Walker - Cossacks Are (4AD)
Lee Harvey Osmond - Queen Bee (Latent)
Efterklang - Modern Drift (4AD)
Jimmy Ruffin - He Who Picks A Rose (Spectrum)
Danny And The Champions - Restless Feet (Loose)
Intombi Zephepha - Ingoina La Lya Thi (Strut)
Johnny Cash - Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound (American)
Choir of Young Believers - She Walks (Ghostly International)
Eilis Phillips - Magpie (white)
Band Of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You (Sub Pop)
Eels - Little Bird (E Works)
Jerry Lee Lewis - Play Me A Song I Can Cry To (Raven)
The Twilight Sad - The Room (Fat Cat)
Jimmy Reid - I Ain't Got You (Charley)
Lee Harvey Osmond - I'm Going To Stay That Way (Latent)
Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm (Hut)
Friendly Fires - Hold On (XL)
